The Shepherds Book 79 



whose days are passed indoors ; yet it is something to 

 recollect all the endless fields in several square miles of 

 country. As a student remembers for years the type and 

 paper, the breadth of the margin can see, as it were, 

 before his eyes the bevel of the binding and hear again the 

 rustle of the stiff leaves of some tall volume which he found 

 in a forgotten corner of a library, and bent over with such 

 delight, heedless of dust and c silver-fish ' and the gathered 

 odour of years so the shepherd recalls his books, the 

 fields ; for he, in the nature of things, has to linger over 

 them and study every letter : sheep are slow. 



When the hedges are grubbed and the grass grows 

 where the hawthorn flowered, still the shepherd can point 

 out to you where the trees stood here an oak and here 

 an ash. On the hills he has often little to do but ponder 

 deeply, sitting on the turf of the slope, while the sheep 

 graze in the hollow, waiting for hours as they eat their 

 way. Therefore by degrees a habit of observation grows 

 upon him always in reference to his charge ; and if he 

 walks across the parish off duty he still cannot choose but 

 notice how the crops are coming on, and where there is 

 most ' keep.' The shepherd has been the last of all to 

 abandon the old custom of long service. While the la- 

 bourers are restless, there may still be found not a few 

 instances of shepherds whose whole lives have been spent 

 upon one farm. Thus, from the habit of observation and 

 the lapse of years, they often become local authorities; 

 and when a dispute of boundaries or water rights or right 

 of way arises, the question is frequently finally decided by 

 the evidence of such a man. 



Every now and then a difficulty happens in reference 

 to the old green lanes and bridle-tracks which once crossed 

 the countrv in everv direction, but get fewer in number 



